Achaea's Year 650 Games

Every 50 in-game years (approximately two real years), Achaea holds a series of contests called the Championship Games, designed to surface the most dominant player. Winning these games is the pinnacle of achievement, and grants one the powerful Staff of Nicator for the next 50 years, until a new winner is chosen (nobody has ever won more than once).

The five contests within the Games include everything from cross-continent races to hunting events involving massive support teams attacking the other teams/defending yours to a real-time grand Quiz about Achaea's rich and involving in-game history and world to a 2 vs. 2 combat tournament.

We're 4/5ths of the way through the Year 650 Games, and unless a miracle happens, one player named Iakimen will win. At worst, he can tie for first in the final event. The 2nd place player, who has a lock on 2nd (named Jhui) posted something to our forums today about the event, and how intense and dramatic it's been for him thus far (along with a mea culpa for letting down his support team, or so he feels at least):

"My god that event was nerve wracking. You never know what to expect in world event situations and the fact that being forced to fly or accidentally slipping indoors can ruin your whole run made it incredible.

"That 15 minute scramble at the end was the most intense thing I have ever been a part of in Achaea."

And this is my favorite part, though it's likely to be indecipherable to someone not versed in our extremely deep and complex combat system. It's from his description of one of the fights in the 2 vs. 2 combat tournament. In this case it was a pair of Occultists battling against a Monk/Sentinel combo:

"Rom axe'd prefarar, I peaced/bloodleech, Dunn paralyzed/bloodleeched. Perfect, peace/para on Rom, so not much he can contribute now. NOPE. He eats bellwort, eats bloodroot and trumpets JUST before I am able to peace again. He gets trumpet, Dunn dies immediately to 80% AXK. As soon as Dunn dies, I madness/hecate Rom as we planned. Sweet, I can easily enlighten now. Rom spams ring of flying. I dervish him out of the skies and here's where I **** up soooooo bad. I redo madness on him for some unknown reason because I thought all I had gotten was hecate on him. Madness is around 3.5 second eq. Had I firelord/enlightened he would have been enlightened and died. He flies again, I dervish. He's all kinds of messed up with stupidity, but because I re-madnessed he's able to cure the other afflictions. So when I firelord/enlighten now, the enlighten failed . Game over. 100% my fault. How epic would a 1v1 Jhui vs Iakimen fight to determine twins have been?"

You can see his entire post here, if you're interested in reading more about what it's like to participate in Achaea at the highest levels: year 650 - Achaea

If that kind of adrenaline rush sounds like your thing, and you want to do it in a vast world with a coherent history and a playerbase that places a high premium on roleplaying, come check us out. achaea.com